After reading So, Listen this was definitely what I needed to read. I felt as if things were certainly looking bleak for Hollis, so I'm glad you wrote this and gave her more closure and happiness.

I actually never imagined Hollis with anybody other than Fred, but now I realize how destructive and unhealthy that would be to be live and deal with. I never considered Lee but now I can see why they'd be good for eachother with their sense of humor c: I think they'd be super cute and I hope that the Patented Daydream Charm emulated that. I believe that there's a part of Hollis that will always love Fred, as one does with their first love. However growth is imperative and I know that opening her heart upto Lee will bring her so much happiness. As will her job at Hogwarts, making her work with Hagrid was a great choice. I love when stories include Hargid, I feel like we don't see him enough.

I also love how you mentioned Hollis and her new friendships. Sometimes I find fics glaze over friendships, which is quite saddening because I find them imperative to ones character. I feel like Hollis' friendship with Cho must be extremely powerful, with both having to overcome the loss of their first love. However Cho has done that with Oliver (can't believe I hadn't realized before what a good couple they'd be) and I feel like her support has encouraged Hollis to do the same.

It's also good to hear about Delphine again. Lol I loved the little addition with Juniper! I can totally see a next gen fic with Juniper as the OC following in her mother's past infatuation ways ;p

Loved this one shot! Definitely gave me some cheer after finishing So, Listen.

I could always use more of this story haha :) ❤❤
Setting her up with Lee surprises me, though I don't hate it.
I really like the idea other befriending Cho and Orchid and maintaining her friendship with Delphine. That she became friends with Cho makes me think she learned to cope with her loss. The relationship with Orchid shows how she moves on from the past as well.
Perhaps oddly, though, my favorite part was the moment with Juniper and Al Potter. It was one of those perfect, full-circle, funny moments. And just adorable.
I kind of wish you would write a spinn-off story about them. But that may just be a result of my love of next gen fics coupled with this fantastic story :)

Author's Response: Hello again!

Ha, setting her up with Lee. She needs someone with a sense of humor that rivals Fred's, which is a challenge only Lee could be up for (since George is with Angelina). I really like what you said about her befriending Cho and Orchid, because that's exactly what I meant to show: moving on from the past, coping with her loss.

Juniper was my favorite part to write! I loved writing Delphine in "So, Listen..." perhaps more than any other character, and really wanted to use some of that crazy lightheartedness in this one-shot. So I made Juniper inherit a lot of her mother's oddball qualities. Someday I might use her as a background character in a next-gen...you're giving me ideas!

I was excited when I found this, I like the idea of her moving on and using the Daydream Charm. And I find her relationship with Hagrid utterly hilarious.

Author's Response: Hollis is a trooper. :) I felt like at the end of "So, Listen...", I just needed some more closure, to make sure she would turn out okay. I think that she and Hagrid are both more appreciative of each other than they let on. It was fun to write more Hagrid - his presence is really lacking in the fanfic world.

I must say, I will always wonder about Hollis. Hollis and Lee, and their happy little family :P

Thank you for the closure. Fred may have been her first love, but he wasn't hers. He was free, taken before his time. In his death he became a distant memory.

I think that one of my favourite lines from P.S I love you, will fit with exactly I'm attempting to explain here.

"You made my life, Holly. But I'm just one chapter in yours. There'll be more. I promise. So here it comes, the big one. Don't be afraid to fall in love again."
(side note; loving how her name is Holly, and her name is Hollis :P)

Fred didn't live long enough for anyone other than Hollis. She was his love, but he wasn't her one any only.

Thank you.

P.S; Poor, dear, Al. :D

Author's Response: You're very right. Hollis was Fred's only love, but Fred was not Hollis's only love. It would be unhealthy for her to dwell on Fred for the rest of her life. I imagine it would hold other men to impossible standards, constantly comparing them. He'll always have a special place in Hollis's heart, but she has moved on to find happiness. :)

I cannot think of a more perfect ending!
That was absolutely beautiful, and I literally had tears in my eyes when she said those last two words.

Is it wrong that I'm hoping for another one-shot of her daydream? *hint hint*

Author's Response: -hands you a tissue-

:) Thank you so much. For me, I needed the closure. I needed to write this little story so that I knew what Hollis's life was like later, just out of curiosity. I'd been writing her for months and missed it, so this was my way of entering her life again.

Sarah. This is the first chance that I've had to look at this, and gee whiz. I literally could not have imagined a better end to your story. From the title to the chapter title to the chapter summary... it's all so stylistically similar to So... Listen that it made for a perfect bookend. (Note, that I haven't even mentioned the content yet (H)).

Now, the content. gahhh. I adored it. It was so, apropriate for grown up hollis. I loved that she had reconnected with her old housemates. I've found in my own life that people that I used to gossip about and not care for, have circled around and ended up being grand companions. I think you wrote a line about Cho and how she knew a thing or two about coping. That is so true, I adored how that line sat by itself, because it really did encapsulate a lot in so few words.

The box in the closet. I love that Hollis had made great efforts at moving onward from Fred. It's only normal. I'd be concerned if she never took a step forward from her first love. I also love that she hadn't yet found anything that was quite right. I imagine that, being robbed of her first love, that it'd be difficult to find something that rivalled that. The fact that she still had the feather and the potion central in her box of trinkets, said a lot without really touching on anythign emotional or heavy.

Lee is hysterical. I certainly hope she meets him without the quidditch star. She deserves a Lee.

Now as a quick aside, I need to squee a few things that weren't central to the story but made it feel so REAL. Juniper.
Albus. Poor boy. Merlin help him if he's anything like his mother. The little red head. I hope it was Fred. Just so you know. Annnd Mrs. Norris. Cranky old cat stalking around Filch's protrait. That was so perfect.

It felt so Hogwarts-y that it made my heart ache a bit. Time always does come around and repeat itself. Hogwarts, is really not that different from when Hollis was there, but she's not a part of it the way she once was, and she never will be again. Time is a funny thing like that. The world keeps spinning unchanging, only you change and age and phase out of it.

This was beautiful, sarah. I'm honored to have been a part of Hollis' life and so grateful that you allowed me and your other readers to be so. Thank you so much.

xoxo
Melissa

Author's Response: JUNIPER ♥ c wat i did thur, incorporating her in Wayward? I AM SO CLEVER, RITE? Hee.

In my head, Hollis and Lee get together and run off on a cruise ship to the Bahamas and then they go mountain climbing in Fiji and jungle-hacking in Brazil before they buy the Malfoy's house with Lee's lottery winnings and produce lots of misbehaving children with no sense of personal boundaries or manners or tact in public. But they make up for it by being very good-looking.

In all seriousness, though, I'm so honored that you liked this story and that you saw it through to the end, and, most importantly, that you liked Hollis. I really miss writing about her these days, but going through these old reviews, it brings back those feelings again. Thank you so much, I can never tell you that enough, for reading this story and being so supportive. (hug)

I'm not sure where Jen is coming from -- this story is about as far from pointless as you could possibly get. It was a natural and necessary continuation of Hollis's story, and as readers who followed her throughout her entire span of school years, we should genuinely care about her, want her to move on. She's a character I know almost as well as my own at this point, and I wouldn't want her to be in perpetual mourning for the boy she loved once. That wouldn't seem fair, in a way.

That being said, I think the way her relationship with Lee is (I believe) going to develop couldn't have been a more perfect direction to set her in. :D I think your Lee has been one of the funniest characters throughout the entire series (is it right to call it a series now? Well, I don't care. I'm going to). And to see him again I was like YES HE'S BACK and then like AWW GO HOLLIS.

And another thing that really impressed me -- Hollis DID move on from Fred, he was not her only boyfriend before all this implied stuff that may or may not happen. She didn't sit shut up in her room, crying over someone she could never get back, and I think that says a LOT about her character. Hollis has a strong personality and a will to match, and I know that she's going to be okay now. And it took this story to make me see that expressly, and I am so glad you gave her and us that final bit of closure. I think it's fantastic -- I really do. ♥

I tried finding all my favorite bits, but I literally ended up copying about... all the Hagrid v. Hollis argument at the beginning, and most of Lee's spouts about the Quaffle Waffle. AND JUNIPER. HOMG WHY DO I STILL LOVE DELPHINE SO MUCH. And now mini-Delphine. Exact clone of her mum. BRILL. :D

This is so good, and it was VERY necessary, you know. Don't doubt yourself for a minute -- the world needed to see this side of Hollis, too. Excellent as always, and I love youuu! ♥

Author's Response: Thank you, Jane. :) ♥ I'm very glad you see it that way.

GET IT, HOLLIS. GET THAT LEE.

Lee was not AT ALL the same person at the end of it as he was when I set out to write this one-shot. Like, complete personality change. But once I veered that way, the momentum kept rolling and before I knew it I had this sneaky, fail-suave Lee that busted into Hogwarts on the weekends to try to trick students into signing up with different Quidditch teams. He has no shame.

And yes, Hollis absolutely did move on from Fred. In the end, she could regard him as a friend who'd passed on long ago, and view the situation with a little bit of sadness but mostly a smile. He brought a lot of light and laughter to her life at one point in time and she never lost sight of that.

Thank you so much for being who you are. I owe so much of my writing to your support and encouragement, and it's pretty safe to say that without you I would not still be writing fanfiction anymore.

It was lovely :) Really had that ending feel to it, and of course, life goes on. It's sad how Hollis still can't leave it behind though, like the way she has a million new boyfriends but can't really get over Fred :( Meh, so sad :( And Lee's hilarious, of course. Gah, such a lame review, sorry. But it was great, I loved it! And I will definitely reread :)

Author's Response: Life went on for Hollis and she did get over Fred. She regards him fondly as an old friend, but nothing more. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to move on to find those other boyfriends. But, such as in life, they weren't the right fit. I like to think that Lee was. :)

Nice, but somewhat pointless in a way. Sorry if that sounds harsh - I don't mean it to... I just find myself wondering why you wrote this.

Having said that, I found it both sweet and sad that 19 years later she is still very much in love with Fred, but trying to get on with her life. I like the bits about her new friendships with Cho & Orchid and had a giggle about the jinxes that she and Delphine weren't able to use properly.

This is very well written (of course - you wrote it & you have a beautiful style), I just don't comprehend your reasoning for writing it.

Author's Response: Ahh, my reason for writing it. Well, you see, being the author, I'm the one who created Hollis. After writing about her for months, I was a bit invested in her life and got to wondering, halfway through the story, what her future would be like. So for me, it was closure. I must correct you, however, in your interpretation that she was still very much in love with Fred. She kept the daydream charm just as she kept trinkets from all of her other boyfriends, and by the time she's a professor at Hogwarts she can think of Fred as an old friend. She was no longer in love with him, but all the same, the various men she'd dated over the years still weren't the right fit. The one she was supposed to end up with, in reality, was Lee. In my head, that's who she's with.